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Now, today, and the week
1,316 instruments still reporting in South Dakota, across 5 networks, each one with the kind of measurement it makes and how often it makes it. Open a place below to see which of them stand near it.
measured now252 instruments
Road weather towers
174 instruments/minutes
temp, pavement temp, wind, visibility, precip
Air temperature, pavement temperature, wind and visibility, placed where the road closes. The right instrument for a blowing-snow answer and almost nobody uses it well.
Data-collection platforms
47 instruments/hourly
temp, wind, gust, humidity, pressure
Shore stations, fire weather stations and river gauges on one identifier. Most of them measure the river and are never offered here; the ones that are published air temperature and wind. A platform that was quiet when the catalogue was built is still listed, because it remains registered with its network. It is the only shoreline wind this service carries.
Airport surface observations
31 instruments/minutes
temp, wind, gust, visibility, precip, pressure
The backbone. Individual sensors fail and the station does not, so every reading is published with the age of the observation beside it.
measured daily1,064 instruments
Volunteer precipitation and snow observers
928 instruments/once a day
precip, snowfall, snow depth
The same measurement a cooperative observer makes, from many more gardens. South Dakota publishes 928 of these against 136 cooperative observers, so on most days it is the densest picture of what is on the ground that exists.
Cooperative observers
136 instruments/once a day
snowfall, snow depth, precip, high, low
A person, a board and a ruler, in the morning. It cannot say what is falling right now and it is the best answer to how much is on the ground.
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Snow on the ground
24 places, each with its own forecast and its own instruments.